Sept. 18, 2026
Female Athlete Apologizes and Forfeits Victory For Sh*tting Her Pants During Competition
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RSS Feed HYROX world champion, a 22-year-old from Australia, Joanna Wietrzyk has forfeited her first place finish at a race in Beijing and apologized to China as well as her fellow competitors. Wietrzyk has been facing significant backlash, even death threats, because she chose to continue competing after defecating on herself in the middle of the race. Race organizers have changed the rules because of the incident, admitting they made a mistake by letting her compete for another 30 minutes while putting other athletes at risk.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks, it is Friday, September 18th, and have you heard this story yet? An elite athlete wins a big-time endurance race and then forfeits the win after she went all cyclospora in the middle of the race. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ, and I'll have to, I'll just, I'll ask for forgiveness for you, Robes. She's going back to elementary school on this. We're talking about people pooping their pants.
00:00:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, she pooped her pants. She defecated all over herself. And yes, I confirmed this was smack dab in the middle of this race.
00:00:43
Speaker 1: Don't use smack dab again in this episode, please.
00:00:46
Speaker 2: Okay, this is 22-year-old Australian athlete Joanna Viacic. And you'll see her picture everywhere if you dare Google it because you'll also see what she looked like for half of the competition with poop literally coming out of her butt all down her legs. And here's the problem. You're not just racing. So the High Rocks competition is an indoor fitness event. So there's not like circulated air here. that combines running with functional exercises. So she's running, and then she's getting on equipment that is shared by other athletes. Now imagine getting on a piece of equipment after Joanna Viacic is on it. And since she's in the lead, She basically was on all of that equipment before anyone else. She soiled herself and then every set of equipment.
00:01:40
Speaker 1: Along the way. We're talking dozens of people. We're talking hundreds of people. How many people had to go across this thing after she did it?
00:01:46
Speaker 2: Enough. It was dozens for sure.
00:01:48
Speaker 1: Dozens for sure. Okay. So she's 22. Now you told me something about this story I didn't get. So initially, and I think anybody who listens to the podcast knows, we are big time runners. We are marathoners. And it is Robes. One of the most anxiety-inducing parts of race day. What to put in my stomach. What do I eat? How much do I eat? Because, Robes, please explain, when you are running for 13 or 26 miles, things get to bouncing around.
00:02:21
Speaker 2: Yes, you get runner's belly. And sometimes you find yourself in an emergency. And so it's always this balance about fueling yourself with the food without... having your intestine suddenly just say, I can't take it anymore and splat. I mean, there are runners who will wear Depends so that they don't have to stop. There's plenty of roadside... because yes, this is a very common thing for runners to deal with, but you don't defecate. I have seen it one time in one race. I saw in a marathon towards the end a woman who had defecated. Was I with you? Yes.
00:02:57
Speaker 1: I think I might have been with you.
00:02:58
Speaker 2: Yes, it was in New York, and you could see it. It had happened to her. You see the signs along the way when you're running a marathon.
00:03:06
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, the signs. After mile 15, don't trust a fart anymore. That's the one. It's one of the funniest ones I see. I see it every year. I see it several times. Don't trust that fart because it's making the out. You think that's a little air you need to let go of. Don't you? Don't trust that.
00:03:24
Speaker 2: Your intestines, your bowels are not as they were a few hours ago. Yes, everything gets Let's just say shaken up, stirred up and sped up.
00:03:34
Speaker 1: And so here's the other part of that, Rose, is when you're dealing with runners, elite athletes who have trained for months and sometimes years for these things that are trying to get a personal best, trying to get a record or trying to win a race. Many would prefer to pee on themselves a little bit than to cost them money. 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds for having a port-a-potty stop.
00:03:57
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And by the way, we're talking about the High Rocks world champion. She is the reigning world champion, Joanna Biacek. And so she was, yes, maintaining that lead. I believe the next athlete closest to her was from the United States. But this is fierce. These women are badasses. I mean, her body is amazing. She is tough and fierce and strong. And so she wins the race in an hour, one hour, one minute and 23 seconds. What does she do? She puts a selfie. She doesn't give a blank that she did what she did. She put the caption, go hard or go home. A win is a win. In all seriousness, thank you for all the support. I'll be back soon.
00:04:36
Speaker 1: Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa. Did the picture show her poopy pants?
00:04:40
Speaker 2: It's been deleted, so I'm not sure. But I believe it did acknowledge what had happened, yes.
00:04:45
Speaker 1: Okay, but the acknowledgement is not really in the words. It must have been in the picture.
00:04:48
Speaker 2: Go hard or go home. You must have seen some of the defecation. I mean, it was hard to miss. It was everywhere.
00:04:53
Speaker 1: Wait, read what she said again?
00:04:54
Speaker 2: Go hard or go home. A win is a win.
00:04:57
Speaker 1: A win is a win.
00:04:58
Speaker 2: In all seriousness, thank you for all the support. I'll be back soon.
00:05:01
Speaker 1: In all seriousness. So, yeah, she's suggesting.
00:05:03
Speaker 2: She was making fun of the fact that she had pooped her pants.
00:05:06
Speaker 1: Okay. Okay, go ahead.
00:05:08
Speaker 2: Now she gets all this hate, all this backlash. It is fierce. It is strong. And she actually started getting death threats and she decides to delete that post. And she ends up now, um, a couple of days later issuing a huge apology. And basically she's gone into hiding. And she forfeited all the points she took from her first place finish. She abdicated the victory. And her tone completely changed from her little cheeky, oh, well, you got to do what you got to do kind of post.
00:05:44
Speaker 1: You said death threats. What was coming her direction?
00:05:49
Speaker 2: I saw that her coach and her both said that there were serious, deplorable, horrific threats made towards her because of this, because the people were so upset that in the stands, the athletes, folks watching, because they claim that her selfishness put all of these other athletes at risk from getting sick and that that was just not good sportsmanlike behavior, but then people went after her.
00:06:16
Speaker 1: That's fair, isn't it, baby?
00:06:18
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:06:18
Speaker 1: When you first told me about this and I first read it, I didn't read enough into it to realize, Ro, she's leaving....
00:06:28
Speaker 2: All over the place.
00:06:29
Speaker 1: All over equipment that dozens of people have to come behind her and use.
00:06:33
Speaker 2: Yes. So this accidental bowel movement happened during the burpee broad jump. And that was in the middle. She was only on her fourth round. And I think there are nine rounds. So she was in the middle of the competition. It explodes during her burpees.
00:06:48
Speaker 1: What is it again? It's called the name of that section as well?
00:06:50
Speaker 2: Burpee broad jumps.
00:06:51
Speaker 1: Burpee broad jumps. that's the last place you want your cycle to kick in.
00:06:57
Speaker 2: An explosion at that point but then she continued to go on rowing machines the farmies farmers carry i don't know what that is sandbag lunges there's a bunch of pictures of her doing that because you can see all of the explosion and then the wall ball and then she used so shared equipment.
00:07:17
Speaker 1: Wall ball that's Some squatting involved in that, ain't it?
00:07:20
Speaker 2: Yes, and you can see pictures of that too. And they said she did all of this with poop literally running down her legs.
00:07:25
Speaker 1: Oh, God. Yep.
00:07:27
Speaker 2: So you can understand the hate. So I have her official statement. I want to get what you think about it because she went all in. She leaned the other way. Like, you know, she was very kind of, you know, flippant about it initially.
00:07:39
Speaker 1: Now she's apologetic.
00:07:40
Speaker 2: Completely different tone.
00:07:41
Speaker 1: Oh, this is going to be good.
00:07:42
Speaker 2: I want to offer my sincere apology to the people of China. my fellow competitors, the spectators, and the high rocks organizers for what happened during the race in Beijing. I felt completely fit and healthy at the start of the race with no reason to expect any illness. Looking back, I regret the decision to not have stepped off the track. I recognize that I should have made a different choice. I take responsibility for my decision to continue and am deeply sorry for the discomfort and disruption it caused. I know my actions had an impact beyond myself and I am genuinely sorry to everyone who was affected. I am learning from this experience and will carry those lessons with me, including remembering that there is more to life than racing and knowing when it is right to step away. On reflection, I have decided to retroactively withdraw from the race and forfeit the points I earned. Thank you to those standing by me, both as an athlete and as a person during this time, and to everyone who has reached out with kindness and support. It means more to me than I can properly express right now. I will be taking some time to recover, reflect, and look after myself and my family away from the noise.
00:08:52
Speaker 1: That was a pretty well-written statement.
00:08:54
Speaker 2: Agreed.
00:08:55
Speaker 1: I was thinking, like, what more could she have said? What more could she have done? I think she could have put something in there for emphasis. I made a mistake and I am sorry. Yes. But that was pretty well written. She took it all. Again, I'm curious how soon after the race she put that first post up. Was it minutes after? It could have been right after.
00:09:18
Speaker 2: I believe it was pretty much right away. She didn't realize how many people she pissed off.
00:09:22
Speaker 1: But she didn't get a chance to reflect either, even before seeing reaction. She just saw, look at me. I don't even care. I pooped myself. This is embarrassing, but I got the win. She probably felt that way.
00:09:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. I pushed through all my discomfort. I pushed through all this grossness. And look what I still did. So I think she kind of felt like a badass in that moment and then realized that was not how it was being received. Not even a little bit. And by the way, High Rocks, were you familiar with this competition before? So this was founded in 2017 in Germany. It's been described as the fastest growing fitness sport in the world. So you first have a one kilometer run. What is that? A little more than a half a mile. And then you go to one functional workout station and you repeat all of that eight times. So the run, go to a workout station, run, go to a workout station, And so some of those stations are like sled pushes, rowing, burpee broad jumps, wall balls. So you really put your body through it. You have to be fit as hell to do something like this.
00:10:26
Speaker 1: You said it's the fastest growing?
00:10:28
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:10:28
Speaker 1: Yeah. Seems like it's exploding in popularity, right? Oh, my God.
00:10:33
Speaker 2: I set you up for that. All right.
00:10:34
Speaker 1: That is hilarious. How is this going to help his popularity moving forward?
00:10:38
Speaker 2: Well, I'm now looking up what this is. I'm now looking into the women who do this.
00:10:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me get into this. It's so hard, you might shit yourself right in the middle of the competition. Yeah, that's for me.
00:10:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe not the best PR... that this new sport, this emerging sport just needed. They say there's no such thing as bad press, but this might qualify.
00:11:00
Speaker 1: Oh, my God. The defecation games of 2027. Join us.
00:11:05
Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
00:11:06
Speaker 1: All right.
00:11:06
Speaker 2: When we come back, we're going to tell you what the founder of this exploding industry had to say about what happened and the rule change they made because of what happened in Beijing. Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. I actually did better than I thought I was going to. I thought I might do a little more giggling. I was like, what am I, in sixth grade?
00:11:38
Speaker 1: Because I've been a little sillier than expected.
00:11:42
Speaker 2: Yes. Well, okay. So we're talking about the High Rocks competition. And the founder of this organization was, I think it's fair to say, pretty mortified about what happened. And he said, yeah, we need to do better. And so they immediately updated its rulebook.
00:11:57
Speaker 1: So this.
00:11:58
Speaker 2: Now, what happened in Beijing is now affecting every single high rocks race going forward. The industry, the organization's rule book has officially been changed the following day because of what happened. Here's the rule change.
00:12:11
Speaker 1: Oh, you have the text?
00:12:12
Speaker 2: I do.
00:12:12
Speaker 1: Oh, this is going to be great.
00:12:13
Speaker 2: If a racer's blood, vomit, urine, or feces poses a welfare or contamination risk to the racer or other racers, a race director may withdraw the racer from the race on medical grounds in line with Hyrox's medical and hygiene SOPs. Any such withdrawal is recorded on the leaderboard as did not finish.
00:12:35
Speaker 1: That's fair.
00:12:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, that should have been on the rule book probably from the get-go. But maybe they didn't have a need for it?
00:12:43
Speaker 1: If somebody shits on the course, do we need to check the rule book to determine what we should do with said runner? Yes. No, we don't.
00:12:52
Speaker 2: And so to your point, the founder said very fully and very freely that yes, race organizers failed. By not removing her from competition. I have the exact quote. High Rocks made a mistake. by not reacting immediately during the race. In the end, it is my job to foresee these potential incidents, and I did not. Of course, we started improving event processes, plus making rule book changes immediately. As of this moment, there are new rules and procedures in place to prevent situations like this from happening again. So they said that they just never foresaw something like this happening.
00:13:27
Speaker 1: These are some pretty good statements in this story. These people taking responsibility. Yeah.
00:13:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:13:33
Speaker 1: It's on me. We failed.
00:13:35
Speaker 2: Germans.
00:13:36
Speaker 1: But he said, still, I'm the guy.
00:13:38
Speaker 2: The Germans have had some practice doing this.
00:13:41
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:13:41
Speaker 2: This is founded in Germany. This is a German game. We know a little bit about, and I say we because I'm very, very German. We know a little bit about, we've learned the hard way.
00:13:50
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:13:52
Speaker 2: We all have.
00:13:53
Speaker 1: The poopy pants girl, keep going. It's not a German thing. That's not a German thing at all.
00:13:56
Speaker 2: She's Australian.
00:13:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not a German. I'm saying.
00:13:59
Speaker 2: Oh, every single person did a good job of saying I'm sorry.
00:14:02
Speaker 1: Everybody. Like, yep, the race directors failed. But you know what? I'm the guy at the top. Who said that?
00:14:10
Speaker 2: You're right. And it was very refreshing. I think everyone was so just. I mean, mortified. I think they just, it was quickly like, I apologize to the entire country of China. I mean, this is what this athlete ended up having to do after she was flexing after she won. She went from that to a few days later, literally apologizing to an entire country.
00:14:32
Speaker 1: No, this is, you know what? We see a lot of scandals and controversies and things happen and how people react, babe, this is how you do it. This is embarrassing. A lot of people failed. And everybody that did, didn't point the finger at somebody else. Everybody who failed here took responsibility for their failure and said how they're going to do better moving forward and actually implemented rules even.
00:14:56
Speaker 2: I agree. And it was swift. It was immediate. It was very, yes, it was impressive. You're right.
00:15:01
Speaker 1: Because think about it.
00:15:02
Speaker 2: They watched this girl compete for 30 minutes with poop running down her pants. Okay. There were some significant lessons that needed to be learned.
00:15:11
Speaker 1: Okay, and I just learned that fact right before we started. I was like, wait a minute. It was like a half hour. They're contemplating for 10 minutes. Should we let her keep going? It's still there.
00:15:22
Speaker 2: You stop her.
00:15:23
Speaker 1: It's still coming.
00:15:23
Speaker 2: No, you stop her. I mean, yeah, that was a slow response, but a quick reaction after the fact. Thank goodness.
00:15:31
Speaker 1: We have never had this issue. We run. We run a lot. I have never had such an emergency situation. that I needed to stop and have a moment like that. I haven't.
00:15:43
Speaker 2: Oh, thank God. But it's a fear of mine, for sure.
00:15:46
Speaker 1: We know how to eat and how, I mean, I will starve myself before I go that direction. But even having to pee sometimes on a run, you don't even want to do that. We haven't had this issue. We've done something right.
00:15:59
Speaker 2: Yes, don't jinx us, all right? All right, with that, everyone, hope you weren't eating a meal while you listened to this, but we should have put out a disclaimer.
00:16:07
Speaker 1: Our apologies. Oh, well.
00:16:09
Speaker 2: Anyway, we hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks, it is Friday, September 18th, and have you heard this story yet? An elite athlete wins a big-time endurance race and then forfeits the win after she went all cyclospora in the middle of the race. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ, and I'll have to, I'll just, I'll ask for forgiveness for you, Robes. She's going back to elementary school on this. We're talking about people pooping their pants.
00:00:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, she pooped her pants. She defecated all over herself. And yes, I confirmed this was smack dab in the middle of this race.
00:00:43
Speaker 1: Don't use smack dab again in this episode, please.
00:00:46
Speaker 2: Okay, this is 22-year-old Australian athlete Joanna Viacic. And you'll see her picture everywhere if you dare Google it because you'll also see what she looked like for half of the competition with poop literally coming out of her butt all down her legs. And here's the problem. You're not just racing. So the High Rocks competition is an indoor fitness event. So there's not like circulated air here. that combines running with functional exercises. So she's running, and then she's getting on equipment that is shared by other athletes. Now imagine getting on a piece of equipment after Joanna Viacic is on it. And since she's in the lead, She basically was on all of that equipment before anyone else. She soiled herself and then every set of equipment.
00:01:40
Speaker 1: Along the way. We're talking dozens of people. We're talking hundreds of people. How many people had to go across this thing after she did it?
00:01:46
Speaker 2: Enough. It was dozens for sure.
00:01:48
Speaker 1: Dozens for sure. Okay. So she's 22. Now you told me something about this story I didn't get. So initially, and I think anybody who listens to the podcast knows, we are big time runners. We are marathoners. And it is Robes. One of the most anxiety-inducing parts of race day. What to put in my stomach. What do I eat? How much do I eat? Because, Robes, please explain, when you are running for 13 or 26 miles, things get to bouncing around.
00:02:21
Speaker 2: Yes, you get runner's belly. And sometimes you find yourself in an emergency. And so it's always this balance about fueling yourself with the food without... having your intestine suddenly just say, I can't take it anymore and splat. I mean, there are runners who will wear Depends so that they don't have to stop. There's plenty of roadside... because yes, this is a very common thing for runners to deal with, but you don't defecate. I have seen it one time in one race. I saw in a marathon towards the end a woman who had defecated. Was I with you? Yes.
00:02:57
Speaker 1: I think I might have been with you.
00:02:58
Speaker 2: Yes, it was in New York, and you could see it. It had happened to her. You see the signs along the way when you're running a marathon.
00:03:06
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, the signs. After mile 15, don't trust a fart anymore. That's the one. It's one of the funniest ones I see. I see it every year. I see it several times. Don't trust that fart because it's making the out. You think that's a little air you need to let go of. Don't you? Don't trust that.
00:03:24
Speaker 2: Your intestines, your bowels are not as they were a few hours ago. Yes, everything gets Let's just say shaken up, stirred up and sped up.
00:03:34
Speaker 1: And so here's the other part of that, Rose, is when you're dealing with runners, elite athletes who have trained for months and sometimes years for these things that are trying to get a personal best, trying to get a record or trying to win a race. Many would prefer to pee on themselves a little bit than to cost them money. 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds for having a port-a-potty stop.
00:03:57
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And by the way, we're talking about the High Rocks world champion. She is the reigning world champion, Joanna Biacek. And so she was, yes, maintaining that lead. I believe the next athlete closest to her was from the United States. But this is fierce. These women are badasses. I mean, her body is amazing. She is tough and fierce and strong. And so she wins the race in an hour, one hour, one minute and 23 seconds. What does she do? She puts a selfie. She doesn't give a blank that she did what she did. She put the caption, go hard or go home. A win is a win. In all seriousness, thank you for all the support. I'll be back soon.
00:04:36
Speaker 1: Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa. Did the picture show her poopy pants?
00:04:40
Speaker 2: It's been deleted, so I'm not sure. But I believe it did acknowledge what had happened, yes.
00:04:45
Speaker 1: Okay, but the acknowledgement is not really in the words. It must have been in the picture.
00:04:48
Speaker 2: Go hard or go home. You must have seen some of the defecation. I mean, it was hard to miss. It was everywhere.
00:04:53
Speaker 1: Wait, read what she said again?
00:04:54
Speaker 2: Go hard or go home. A win is a win.
00:04:57
Speaker 1: A win is a win.
00:04:58
Speaker 2: In all seriousness, thank you for all the support. I'll be back soon.
00:05:01
Speaker 1: In all seriousness. So, yeah, she's suggesting.
00:05:03
Speaker 2: She was making fun of the fact that she had pooped her pants.
00:05:06
Speaker 1: Okay. Okay, go ahead.
00:05:08
Speaker 2: Now she gets all this hate, all this backlash. It is fierce. It is strong. And she actually started getting death threats and she decides to delete that post. And she ends up now, um, a couple of days later issuing a huge apology. And basically she's gone into hiding. And she forfeited all the points she took from her first place finish. She abdicated the victory. And her tone completely changed from her little cheeky, oh, well, you got to do what you got to do kind of post.
00:05:44
Speaker 1: You said death threats. What was coming her direction?
00:05:49
Speaker 2: I saw that her coach and her both said that there were serious, deplorable, horrific threats made towards her because of this, because the people were so upset that in the stands, the athletes, folks watching, because they claim that her selfishness put all of these other athletes at risk from getting sick and that that was just not good sportsmanlike behavior, but then people went after her.
00:06:16
Speaker 1: That's fair, isn't it, baby?
00:06:18
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:06:18
Speaker 1: When you first told me about this and I first read it, I didn't read enough into it to realize, Ro, she's leaving....
00:06:28
Speaker 2: All over the place.
00:06:29
Speaker 1: All over equipment that dozens of people have to come behind her and use.
00:06:33
Speaker 2: Yes. So this accidental bowel movement happened during the burpee broad jump. And that was in the middle. She was only on her fourth round. And I think there are nine rounds. So she was in the middle of the competition. It explodes during her burpees.
00:06:48
Speaker 1: What is it again? It's called the name of that section as well?
00:06:50
Speaker 2: Burpee broad jumps.
00:06:51
Speaker 1: Burpee broad jumps. that's the last place you want your cycle to kick in.
00:06:57
Speaker 2: An explosion at that point but then she continued to go on rowing machines the farmies farmers carry i don't know what that is sandbag lunges there's a bunch of pictures of her doing that because you can see all of the explosion and then the wall ball and then she used so shared equipment.
00:07:17
Speaker 1: Wall ball that's Some squatting involved in that, ain't it?
00:07:20
Speaker 2: Yes, and you can see pictures of that too. And they said she did all of this with poop literally running down her legs.
00:07:25
Speaker 1: Oh, God. Yep.
00:07:27
Speaker 2: So you can understand the hate. So I have her official statement. I want to get what you think about it because she went all in. She leaned the other way. Like, you know, she was very kind of, you know, flippant about it initially.
00:07:39
Speaker 1: Now she's apologetic.
00:07:40
Speaker 2: Completely different tone.
00:07:41
Speaker 1: Oh, this is going to be good.
00:07:42
Speaker 2: I want to offer my sincere apology to the people of China. my fellow competitors, the spectators, and the high rocks organizers for what happened during the race in Beijing. I felt completely fit and healthy at the start of the race with no reason to expect any illness. Looking back, I regret the decision to not have stepped off the track. I recognize that I should have made a different choice. I take responsibility for my decision to continue and am deeply sorry for the discomfort and disruption it caused. I know my actions had an impact beyond myself and I am genuinely sorry to everyone who was affected. I am learning from this experience and will carry those lessons with me, including remembering that there is more to life than racing and knowing when it is right to step away. On reflection, I have decided to retroactively withdraw from the race and forfeit the points I earned. Thank you to those standing by me, both as an athlete and as a person during this time, and to everyone who has reached out with kindness and support. It means more to me than I can properly express right now. I will be taking some time to recover, reflect, and look after myself and my family away from the noise.
00:08:52
Speaker 1: That was a pretty well-written statement.
00:08:54
Speaker 2: Agreed.
00:08:55
Speaker 1: I was thinking, like, what more could she have said? What more could she have done? I think she could have put something in there for emphasis. I made a mistake and I am sorry. Yes. But that was pretty well written. She took it all. Again, I'm curious how soon after the race she put that first post up. Was it minutes after? It could have been right after.
00:09:18
Speaker 2: I believe it was pretty much right away. She didn't realize how many people she pissed off.
00:09:22
Speaker 1: But she didn't get a chance to reflect either, even before seeing reaction. She just saw, look at me. I don't even care. I pooped myself. This is embarrassing, but I got the win. She probably felt that way.
00:09:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. I pushed through all my discomfort. I pushed through all this grossness. And look what I still did. So I think she kind of felt like a badass in that moment and then realized that was not how it was being received. Not even a little bit. And by the way, High Rocks, were you familiar with this competition before? So this was founded in 2017 in Germany. It's been described as the fastest growing fitness sport in the world. So you first have a one kilometer run. What is that? A little more than a half a mile. And then you go to one functional workout station and you repeat all of that eight times. So the run, go to a workout station, run, go to a workout station, And so some of those stations are like sled pushes, rowing, burpee broad jumps, wall balls. So you really put your body through it. You have to be fit as hell to do something like this.
00:10:26
Speaker 1: You said it's the fastest growing?
00:10:28
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:10:28
Speaker 1: Yeah. Seems like it's exploding in popularity, right? Oh, my God.
00:10:33
Speaker 2: I set you up for that. All right.
00:10:34
Speaker 1: That is hilarious. How is this going to help his popularity moving forward?
00:10:38
Speaker 2: Well, I'm now looking up what this is. I'm now looking into the women who do this.
00:10:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me get into this. It's so hard, you might shit yourself right in the middle of the competition. Yeah, that's for me.
00:10:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe not the best PR... that this new sport, this emerging sport just needed. They say there's no such thing as bad press, but this might qualify.
00:11:00
Speaker 1: Oh, my God. The defecation games of 2027. Join us.
00:11:05
Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
00:11:06
Speaker 1: All right.
00:11:06
Speaker 2: When we come back, we're going to tell you what the founder of this exploding industry had to say about what happened and the rule change they made because of what happened in Beijing. Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. I actually did better than I thought I was going to. I thought I might do a little more giggling. I was like, what am I, in sixth grade?
00:11:38
Speaker 1: Because I've been a little sillier than expected.
00:11:42
Speaker 2: Yes. Well, okay. So we're talking about the High Rocks competition. And the founder of this organization was, I think it's fair to say, pretty mortified about what happened. And he said, yeah, we need to do better. And so they immediately updated its rulebook.
00:11:57
Speaker 1: So this.
00:11:58
Speaker 2: Now, what happened in Beijing is now affecting every single high rocks race going forward. The industry, the organization's rule book has officially been changed the following day because of what happened. Here's the rule change.
00:12:11
Speaker 1: Oh, you have the text?
00:12:12
Speaker 2: I do.
00:12:12
Speaker 1: Oh, this is going to be great.
00:12:13
Speaker 2: If a racer's blood, vomit, urine, or feces poses a welfare or contamination risk to the racer or other racers, a race director may withdraw the racer from the race on medical grounds in line with Hyrox's medical and hygiene SOPs. Any such withdrawal is recorded on the leaderboard as did not finish.
00:12:35
Speaker 1: That's fair.
00:12:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, that should have been on the rule book probably from the get-go. But maybe they didn't have a need for it?
00:12:43
Speaker 1: If somebody shits on the course, do we need to check the rule book to determine what we should do with said runner? Yes. No, we don't.
00:12:52
Speaker 2: And so to your point, the founder said very fully and very freely that yes, race organizers failed. By not removing her from competition. I have the exact quote. High Rocks made a mistake. by not reacting immediately during the race. In the end, it is my job to foresee these potential incidents, and I did not. Of course, we started improving event processes, plus making rule book changes immediately. As of this moment, there are new rules and procedures in place to prevent situations like this from happening again. So they said that they just never foresaw something like this happening.
00:13:27
Speaker 1: These are some pretty good statements in this story. These people taking responsibility. Yeah.
00:13:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:13:33
Speaker 1: It's on me. We failed.
00:13:35
Speaker 2: Germans.
00:13:36
Speaker 1: But he said, still, I'm the guy.
00:13:38
Speaker 2: The Germans have had some practice doing this.
00:13:41
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:13:41
Speaker 2: This is founded in Germany. This is a German game. We know a little bit about, and I say we because I'm very, very German. We know a little bit about, we've learned the hard way.
00:13:50
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:13:52
Speaker 2: We all have.
00:13:53
Speaker 1: The poopy pants girl, keep going. It's not a German thing. That's not a German thing at all.
00:13:56
Speaker 2: She's Australian.
00:13:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not a German. I'm saying.
00:13:59
Speaker 2: Oh, every single person did a good job of saying I'm sorry.
00:14:02
Speaker 1: Everybody. Like, yep, the race directors failed. But you know what? I'm the guy at the top. Who said that?
00:14:10
Speaker 2: You're right. And it was very refreshing. I think everyone was so just. I mean, mortified. I think they just, it was quickly like, I apologize to the entire country of China. I mean, this is what this athlete ended up having to do after she was flexing after she won. She went from that to a few days later, literally apologizing to an entire country.
00:14:32
Speaker 1: No, this is, you know what? We see a lot of scandals and controversies and things happen and how people react, babe, this is how you do it. This is embarrassing. A lot of people failed. And everybody that did, didn't point the finger at somebody else. Everybody who failed here took responsibility for their failure and said how they're going to do better moving forward and actually implemented rules even.
00:14:56
Speaker 2: I agree. And it was swift. It was immediate. It was very, yes, it was impressive. You're right.
00:15:01
Speaker 1: Because think about it.
00:15:02
Speaker 2: They watched this girl compete for 30 minutes with poop running down her pants. Okay. There were some significant lessons that needed to be learned.
00:15:11
Speaker 1: Okay, and I just learned that fact right before we started. I was like, wait a minute. It was like a half hour. They're contemplating for 10 minutes. Should we let her keep going? It's still there.
00:15:22
Speaker 2: You stop her.
00:15:23
Speaker 1: It's still coming.
00:15:23
Speaker 2: No, you stop her. I mean, yeah, that was a slow response, but a quick reaction after the fact. Thank goodness.
00:15:31
Speaker 1: We have never had this issue. We run. We run a lot. I have never had such an emergency situation. that I needed to stop and have a moment like that. I haven't.
00:15:43
Speaker 2: Oh, thank God. But it's a fear of mine, for sure.
00:15:46
Speaker 1: We know how to eat and how, I mean, I will starve myself before I go that direction. But even having to pee sometimes on a run, you don't even want to do that. We haven't had this issue. We've done something right.
00:15:59
Speaker 2: Yes, don't jinx us, all right? All right, with that, everyone, hope you weren't eating a meal while you listened to this, but we should have put out a disclaimer.
00:16:07
Speaker 1: Our apologies. Oh, well.
00:16:09
Speaker 2: Anyway, we hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes. We'll talk soon.